He was cross-eyed, wide hands, wild feet. For years and years on the farm rose he until the bridge to town fell in the ravine. At such a time, the boy, who was only handsome in rain and in danger, tilled the fields til the seeds ran out, fed the cattle til the grain ran out, fed himself til the beef ran out. He swept the yard and locked the door, then slopped a rope around the irascible, dun goat, which didn’t care one way or the other. This was all the help our hero had as he, quick to tongue and quick to stumble over it, left the quiet and dry for the woods of the north.
Go north, go north, heard he, in the lisp of the water slouching over stones, in the furtive whisperings of russet grass. He set out northish, a round of hard, white cheese strapped to his back, punctured with every knife he had found in the house. The goat stalled in the streams, bears nuzzled his hair while he napped, and progress was good, progress was fair, but progress to where?
An inkling of strange came with the bird. A nugget of mercury, stiff on its back, sprawled out in his hand, it was deader than dead, not yet crawling with ants. Silver feathers sleek and impossible to pluck, the boy turned it that way and this, shaking it for sound and getting nothing for his efforts. Into the hollowed-out cheese it went. Our hero stuttered on.
Obvious to us was the second of signs, when the goat, whispy beard smoldering, turned to the boy and spoke.
“I, I am the one of the Underworld, the one your books speak of as the Ending of Time, the worm of your heart. Turn back or be slain. Turn back and all the maidens of your fevered dreams will lick your chest and call you master.”
The death of a strange thing had not moved the boy; the life of another one wouldn’t either. On he went, on he went, certain and more his way would win right.
Third sign came and came and came, when the earth flaked to white and the air twisted tight and chill. Past the curve of the earth was an endless ocean, teeth of jagged floes, gnashing angrily at clouds. A day and year he’d shambled roughly northish, hands wrapped in scraps of goatskin, horns askew in dirty curls, legs hairy, beard heavy, bleating his misery until he learned to walk on ice.
She was unexpected, fresh as sunrise, sweet as sleep, oh so still in the masoleum built around her body. Skin bleached to brilliance, wishes hissed in the space between them. The hero crouched on blood-cracked heels, swallowed safe dreams, waited for his turn to speak.
“You didn’t call me, but I came.”
And then he went, not for the hands, not for the lips, but stroked her eyes behind the film of frost.
When she awoke, the world woke with her.
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